1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sealing implement for attaching a sealing tags such as bland labels, price tags, material description, instruction manual, etc. to cloths, shoes, bags, and other products, and more particularly to a sealing implement that can be smoothly attach tags when it is set to a special-purpose tag attaching tool (gun) for attaching tags as specified above.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, a various kinds of sealing implements have been used for banding together clothes, women""s boots, sandals, shoes, etc. or for attaching bland labels, price tags, etc.
For example, the sealing implement comprises a filament section for forming a loop by passing a tag, an insertion head part provided on one end of the filament part, and a socket part provided with an insertion hole for allowing the relevant inserting head part to pass, and provided on another end of the filament section. And a plurality of sealing implements are temporarily fixed to two bars 11 arranged in parallel to one another in such a manner so as to enable the socket part to be easily removed.
Further, such sealing implement is produced by being integrally molded preferably with synthetic resin or the like, and in particular, the filament section is elongated so as to exhibit extremely strong resistance against pulling operation. When the inserting head section penetrates the narrow part of the socket section, a latching piece, which is a hook mounted near the insertion hole, opens, and this causes the neck part of the insertion head part is reversibly fixed in the socket part, and a loop-form label attaching condition is completed, and sealing is achieved.
Conventionally, these sealing implements are loaded in a special-purpose tag attaching tool (gun), and it is used not only for banding together boots, sandals, and shoes but also primarily for fixing bland labels and tags T that carry the instruction manual of a product on such goods by pulling the lever.
On the other hand, in the past, many kinds of apparatus for using to shot this sealing implement for attaching the same on a good or the like by forming the filament part thereof into a loop like shape with a suitable tag or the like, had been used with deferent mechanism from each other.
On of such examples will be explained with reference to FIG. 4, hereunder.
Note that, FIG. 4 shows a perspective view of a configuration of one example of such conventional tag attaching tool (gun) 18 as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,375 or U.S. Pat. No. 5,908,110.
When it is used, a conventional unit of sealing implements 10 as shown in FIG. 6, which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,908,110 is mounted on an upper surface 30 of this gun 18 by making a shape of the sealing implement into U type configuration and then each one of the sealing implements 1 is separated from the connecting bar, respectively, by operating an operating lever 18a as one of examples of an operating means, thereby the insertion head part 13 and the socket part 15 can be coupled to each other.
The further explanation for this gun 18 will be done hereunder.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the condition in which the sealing implement according to the present invention is set to the gun 18.
Now, to the gun 18, vertical grooves 21, 22 are formed on the right and the left side of the gun for inserting the connecting bars 11, 11xe2x80x2 of the sealing implement 10. To the vertical groove 21, for example, the connecting bar 11 connecting the socket section 15 of the sealing implement 10 is inserted, and to the vertical groove 22, the connecting bar 11xe2x80x2 connecting the inserting head section 13 is inserted.
In addition, on the gun 18, a shooting mechanism for shooting such sealing implement as shown in FIG. 5 is provided, in that at a side portion of the vertical groove 21, a first pushing means 40 for separating each one of the socket part 15 of the sealing implement 1 from a connecting portion of the connecting bar 11 and for pushing forward each one of the separated socket part 15 one by one along a curved socket guide 26.
The first pushing means 40 comprises a flexible belt 41 having a rack portion and a gear portion 42 for sliding the flexible belt 41 back and forth by mating with the rack portion.
Therefore, in the conventional embodiment, at every time when the lever 18a is operated, a tip end portion 43 of the flexible belt 41 attaches to a surface 44 of the socket part 15 which is as surface to which the filament part 12 is contacted, and then the tip end portion 43 of the flexible belt 41 separates the socket part 15 from the connecting part of the connecting bar 11 after that it transfer the socket part 15 to a front end portion of the curved socket guide 26.
On the other hand, at a side portion of the vertical groove 22, it is provided a second pushing means 45 which separates the insertion head part 13 of the sealing implement 1 from the connecting part of the connecting bar 11xe2x80x2 and pushes each one of the insertion head part 13 forward to the front end portion of the curved socket quid 26, one by one.
The second pushing means 45 comprised a tubular guide 24 fixed to a main body of the gun 18 and a piston mechanism 47 having a gripping portion for gripping the insertion head part 13 at a tip portion thereof and which slides with response to an operation of the lever 18a. 
When the piston portion 47 is slid forward, it moves toward the curved socket guide 26 by gripping the insertion head part 13 of the sealing implement 1 arranged inside of the tubular guide 24 at a tip portion thereof and inserts the insertion head part 13 into the insertion hole 14 for receiving the insertion head part 13 of the socket part 15 which had already arrived at the front end portion of the curved socket guide 26.
Note that, in the conventional embodiment, in order to move each one of the sealing implement 1 forming the unit of sealing implement 10 thus mounted on the gun 18, to a position to be shot out, respectively, the gun is provided with a gear mechanism 50, 50xe2x80x2 as shown in FIG. 9, which can mate with each one of a connection portion formed between the insertion head part 13 or the socket part 15 and the connecting bar 11 or 11xe2x80x2, respectively.
And thus, by making each one gear tooth of the gear portion of the gear mechanism 50, 50xe2x80x2 to be rotated respectively, by utilizing a suitable cam mechanism or ratchet mechanism in response to the operation of the operating means 18a, it can be designed that the connecting bar can be moved downwardly by a length corresponding to a distance formed between the adjacently arranged sealing implements.
However, in the conventional sealing implement 10 described above, as shown in FIGS. 7(A) and FIG. 7(B), a contacting surface 44, one of the side wall surfaces of the socket part 15 of the sealing implement 10 and at which a filament part 12 is contacted, is formed with a curved surface and thus when the tip end portion 43 of the flexible belt 41 having a function for pushing out the socket part 15, is attached to the side wall surface 44, as shown in FIG. 8, an arranged direction of the socket part 15 is easily deformed from the originally arranged direction so that a direction of a longitudinal axis of the socket part 15 becomes different from a direction of a longitudinal axis of the filament part 12, resulting a head of the socket part 15 not to be smoothly inserted into the curved socket guide 26.
Therefore, there has been many cases in that the insertion operation for inserting the insertion head part 13 into an entrance portion of the curved socket guide 26 is discontinued so that so called jamming condition had been frequently occurred.
Further, during a storage of a plurality of the unit of sealing implements 10, when some kinds of load had been applied to the socket part 15, the direction of arrangement for each one of the socket part 15 would be deformed as shown in FIG. 8, the same problem as mentioned above, in that a front end of the socket part 15 cannot be smoothly inserted into the entrance portion of the curved socket guide 26 when the sealing implement 1 is shot, had been occurred.
Accordingly, by using the conventional sealing implement and the conventional gun, it is apparent that an operation efficiency thereof had been greatly reduced due to not only an occurrence of malfunction of the mechanism but also an occurrence of the jamming condition followed by stopping it operation as well as by performing a removing operation of the jammed portion.
That is to say, in using the conventional sealing implement and the conventional gun, the gun had not correctly operated causing to generate failure of shooting the sealing implement or a part of the sealing implement had been captured inside the gun causing extra operation for removing such captured part of the sealing implement and for resetting the sealing implement at every time when such problems had been occurred.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a sealing implement which make an operational efficiency in a mounting operation for mounting the sealing implement on a gun as well as to provide a sealing implement which is able to constantly maintain the correct direction of a socket part so as to avoid an occurrence of so called jamming condition.
In order to solve the above problems, the present invention basically adopts a configuration described as follows. That is, the present invention relates to a sealing implement comprising a flexible filament part, an insertion head part having an appropriate engaging part provided on one end part of the filament part; and a socket part having a hole for the purpose of irreversibly inserting the insertion head part, and provided on another end of the filament, wherein a plurality of the single sealing implements are mutually and adjacently arranged in parallel with each other and each of the plurality of insertion head parts or a portion proximity thereto and each of the plurality of socket parts or a portion proximity thereto being caused to be connected to separately provided connecting bars, respectively, and further wherein each of side wall surfaces of the socket part each being adjacently arranged to each other, and which being oppositely disposed to each other, are connected with each other via a connecting means.
In order to resolve the above-mentioned problems, the unit of the sealing implement of the present invention has a technical conception in that at each one of the socket part of the sealing implement 1 each being parallely arranged to each other on the connecting bars, with interposing a predetermined distance thereinto, each of the side wall surfaces of the socket parts each adjacently arranged to each other and facing to each other is connected to each other with a suitable connecting means so that an arrangement configuration of each one of the socket part cannot be deformed so as to be solidly kept at a predetermined position when each one of the sealing implement is shot out by the gun, respectively.
Accordingly, in the present invention, even when an improper external force is applied to the unit of sealing implement during transportation or storage thereof, the directions of an arrangement of the socket part are not misaligned, and when the socket part 15 is separated from the connecting bar and is inserted into an entrance portion of the curved socket guide by the pushing means, there substantially be no chance in that a position of the socket part would be deformed with respect to an entrance portion of the curved socket guide so that it can be possible that the occurrence of the jamming condition can surely be prevented.
Therefore, in the present invention, an operational efficiency of the shooting operation of the sealing implement can be improved.